Printed circuit board electrical connectors have been known for many years Wherein the connectors have terminals with solder tails extending therefrom for insertion into holes in a printed circuit board. Miniaturization of such connectors has led to the development of "surface mount" connectors which have terminals with solder tails configured for positioning against and connection to circuit traces or pads on a surface of the board. A wide variety of surface mount connectors have been developed, including terminal pin headers which mount a plurality of terminals with contact pins projecting therefrom for mating with socket-type terminals of a complementary mating connector.
One type of surface mount connector or header is mounted at an edge of a printed circuit board, sometimes in a cut-out notch in the edge, with contact pins of the connector terminals projecting generally parallel to the circuit board away from the edge of the board for interconnection with a complementary connector. Solder tails of the terminals project in an opposite direction relative to the pins for interconnection with circuit traces on one side of the board. The contact pins project from the connector in two spaced apart horizontal rows parallel to the board and with the solder tails of all of the terminals being in a single horizontal plane for connection to the planar array of circuit traces on the one side of the board. Such rows of pins are configured so that one pin from each row is vertically aligned with a pin from the other row along a plane perpendicular to the board and the tails of the terminals with vertically aligned pins are adjacent each other.
One of the problems with surface mount edge connectors or headers as described above, is that two different configurations of terminals have been utilized with one configuration for the top row of pins and the second configuration for the bottom row of pins. That is, when the terminals are utilized in pairs, the contact pins will be arranged in two rows, such as a "top" row and "bottom" row, with the contact pins in each pair being in vertical alignment, i.e. in planes generally perpendicular to the printed circuit board. Of course, the solder tails of the terminals must be arranged in a single or coplanar row for automated interconnection to circuit traces or pads on one side of the circuit board.
Surface mount edge connectors or headers of the character described above are most often intended to be relatively inexpensive electrical components. When differently configured terminals are employed, additional tooling and inventory is required, which increases the cost of the connectors. It would be desirable to provide a surface mount electrical connector wherein all of the terminals are of an identical configuration, notwithstanding the fact that the contact pins of the terminals may be disposed in multiple rows while the solder tails of the terminals are disposed in a single or coplanar row. This invention is directed to satisfying that need and solving the problems identified above and, in turn, reducing the tooling costs of the connector terminals, as well as reducing the inventory of terminals required for such connectors.
In addition, such connectors utilize a boardlock having resilient legs for retaining the connector to the board prior to soldering. Many such boardlocks utilize a separate component, often made of metal, for such purpose. As a result, such separate boardlocks must be securely fastened to the connector. One of the problems with some separate boarlocks is that they are retained to the connector by a portion of the resilient legs. Thus, when the legs flex, the boardlock has a tendency to pull away from the connector housing.